Taane Milne

Demetriou slams officiating over Milne sin bin, plans to meet NRL officials

Ryan Sutton was taken to hospital after the tackle.

Published by
Scott Pryde

Jason Demetriou has been left seething with the officials after the South Sydney Rabbitohs fell short to the Canterbury Bulldogs on Saturday evening at Homebush.

An incident early in the first half saw Milne's shoulder make direct contact with the head of Canterbury prop Ryan Sutton, who was stretchered off and then taken to hospital.

He has since been cleared of serious injury, according to Fox Sports.

Milne, who has a long history of on-field indiscretions, was sent off during last year's finals series for a reckless high tackle.

Despite being ruled to have made contact to the head of Sutton, Milne was originally only placed on report before a further review saw Milne sent to the bin.

"They [the bunker] have reviewed further angles and they have agreed that it's forceful and direct to the head, so not only on report, but you're now in the bin," referee Liam Kennedy told Milne.

The sin bin saw the Bulldogs run on two immediate tries through Blake Wilson and Reed Mahoney with the man advantage as part of the 36 points to 32 win.

Demetriou slammed the decision post-game, claiming it was a "manufactured" sin bin and that Milne had nothing to do with Sutton's injury, while also suggesting Milne will have no case to answer from the match review committee.

“Anyone who watches that can clearly see the injury doesn't come from Taane Milne,” the coach said during his post-game press conference.

“I've got my contacts in so I'm pretty confident I can see it, there is no way that comes from Taane Milne.

“It's an accidental contact as he ducks his head and you can clearly see that - it's a neck injury. But for some reason we get a guy in the sin bin because someone stayed down injured.

“It's unfortunate that he's injured and I hope he's ok and I don't want to take anything away from the Bulldogs, they had a tough week and responded well.

“We're just finding things to do. Finding ways to get people who aren't even on the field to make big decisions. The live decision was what it was, but for whatever reason we want to look at it again and again and again, slow it down and manufacture an opinion and send a bloke into the sin bin.

“We're out there with more than half our cap missing and we can't get a fair crack, honestly.

“I'll be very surprised if Taane has anything to answer, very surprised.”

Demetriou then went on to criticise the policing of the ruck, and said he will go to the NRL this year, although admitted all he has gotten this year so far was excuses from the NRL over the standard of officiating.

“I felt like we were on the back foot a lot of the time and there were a lot of inconsistencies around the ruck,” he said.

“I'll go to the NRL again and have some conversations about that, but I feel like there's no reward for us in the ruck.

“You just get excuses.

“You get ‘Oh yeah we understand that, we could have got that right'.

“I'm not talking about decisions here or there – I'm talking about consistency in the ruck.

“The number of times there are extra efforts or a push on the ground or working their way around the tackle, all the things that we say we want to speed the game up for and people say they want a faster game, but consistently we're getting controlled slower in the ruck.

“Our ruck is consistently slower than anyone else, and it's not like we're fighting for it.”

The sensational spray from the coach comes with the Rabbitohs narrowly clinging onto a spot in the top eight with ten wins from their 18 games. South Sydney have the bye next week before heading on the mother of all road trips, with consecutive games at the Sunshine Coast, Tamworth, Perth, Cairns and Newcastle before another bye.

Published by
Scott Pryde